Security and Defense: The Day After
When Israel thinks of a nuclear Iran, it's not just concerned about change in balance of power; it's more concerned about nuclear terrorism.
In February 2009, a professor named Abdallah Nafisi gave a lecture in Kuwait and discussed how the tunnels that are used by smugglers under the Mexican-American border could be used in a potential terror attack against the US.
“Four pounds of anthrax carried in a suitcase this big,” he said, creating a small-looking suitcase with his hands, “carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the US, is guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers there.”
According to Nafisi this scenario is possible and as a result there is no longer any need for attacks like 9/11 which, he said, would be “small change” in comparison to the attack he envisions.
“There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings and so on. Just one person with courage to carry four pounds of anthrax will go to the White House lawn and will spread this confetti all over... it will turn into a real celebration,” he said at the conference, which was aired on Al- Jazeera television.
While it would have been easy to dismiss Nafisi as just another crazy anti- American radical, his scenario was carefully studied and deemed viable. Many security officials even took his remarks seriously.
One of them was Ronald K. Knoble, secretary-general of Interpol, who that month mentioned the speech in a letter he issued in commemoration of the first World Trade Center bombing which took place 16 years earlier.
“If we add to these global security gaps the devastation that could follow a nuclear or biological terrorist attack within the next five years... then we must conclude that now is no time for complacency,” Knoble wrote.
That part of the article puts forth the background - now to the ramifications of Iran's development of nuclear weapons:
THAT IS WHY when Israel thinks of a nuclear Iran, it is not just concerned about change in the balance of power in the region and the constant threat it will have to get used to living under – particularly due to the possibility, no matter how slim, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will use his country’s newly-acquired bomb to do what he has called for and wipe it off the map.
It is more concerned, according to senior defense officials, with the threat of nuclear terrorism – the possibility that Iran will give a crude device, or dirty bomb, to one of its proxies. This way it will be able to maintain some level of deniability.
...the primary danger is that “a nuclear weapon will reach a terrorist group which will not hesitate to use it immediately. It will send it in a container with a GPS to a leading port in the US, Europe or Israel.”
According to Israeli assessments, if Iran achieves a nuclear weapon, its proxies will feel emboldened and empowered. It will basically make Hizbullah, Hamas and others, feel braver to be more daring in their own acts of aggression.
THIS ISSUE has been taboo for many years within the government and defense establishment.
Israel plans for this eventuality:
A few years later, a prestigious think tank convened a group of former senior IDF officers and diplomats to participate in a day of war games that broke new ground by assuming the existence of an Iranian bomb. Discomfort with the scenario prompted the Defense Ministry to cancel its participation.
The scenario played out involved an Iran which had already obtained a nuclear capability. Shortly after the announcement that Iran had gone nuclear, Hizbullah launched long-range missiles at Tel Aviv, striking the Defense Ministry and causing casualties and large-scale destruction. The next stage was that Israel and the US had obtained intelligence indicating Iran had transferred technology to Hizbullah which could be used to create a crude nuclear device.
Possibly of more concern for Israel is the nuclear arms race a nuclearized Iran will set off, turning the Middle East from an already volatile region to something of a nightmare. If Iran succeeds in defying the world and developing the bomb, then the Nonproliferation Treaty could completely collapse, paving the way for additional countries to develop nuclear weapons.
Countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan have already announced plans to engage in nuclear research, of course for energy purposes at this stage.
The BOTTOM LINE:
“Failure to stop Iran and North Korea could result in a cascade of proliferation,” Graham wrote early this year, “which would dramatically increase the likelihood of the use of weapons of mass destruction.”
In other words, if Iran achieves their dream of nuclear weaponry (which seems highly likely at this point) - then the ramifications are deep and far reaching, and go way beyond the destruction that Iran could create by themselves. Its another reason that Iran obtaining nukes OR Israel thwarting this development through military action (which would also trigger a cascade of subsequent events in the region) is so HUGE from a prophecy perspective.
Either scenario will trigger a long cascade of subsequent events, most of which would have prophetic implications.
And either scenario is coming to a rapid conclusion.
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